In these hospitals, the patients don’t mind the nursing students practicing on them. They don’t fuss at several sticks before an IV is in right. They don’t even squirm during a catheterization procedure.

These patients are part of two virtual hospital environments used to train nursing and allied health professionals.

Jacque Lunsford, a third semester nursing student at GateWay Community College in Phoenix, practices procedures in a mock hospital. "It has really added to my confidence level," Lunsford said. "When I’m with a patient, I’m not as frightened. It is also reassuring to the patients that I feel comfortable with the procedure."

Virtual hospital environments like the one at the Center for Health Careers Education at GateWay Community College, part of Maricopa Community Colleges, are one tool to enhance learning.

The $11 million bond-funded facility opened in July 1999. The 77,000-square-foot center trains 2,700 students in the 14 health care programs from nursing to radiology.

To the north, the La Crosse Medical Health Science Consortium Inc. in Wisconsin – which consists of two hospitals and three higher education institutions – funded a $27 million health science center to provide students with state-of-the-art learning facilities and educational technologies.

The six floors of the health science center, which opened this summer, encompass about 168,655 square feet and serve about 530 students in 13 undergraduate and graduate programs including radiography and physical therapy. Two floors house laboratory space specifically designed for academic programs like the radiation therapy program at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.

These facilities are leading the field of health care education with few, if any, other similar facilities in operation across the country. But more schools are moving toward interactive learning, said Margi Schultz, MSN, RN, assistant director of nursing at GateWay.

These real-life experiences prepare students from the start of their education, said Cathy Lucius, MSN, RN, director of the nursing division at GateWay. "We’re not just telling them how to do it, we can show them."

Traditionally, someone stands and lectures students, Schultz said. With this simulated environment, they start the "doing" part as quickly as possible, enhancing the learning process, she said. "We can talk about something in the morning and have them put it into practice in the lab that afternoon," she said.

"It also improves the students’ confidence," said Kristine Saeger, RTT, program director for the radiation therapy program at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. In this environment, students can make mistakes and learn from them without consequences to a patient, she said.

Using the mock facilities permits students to practice in a real-life context before doing fieldwork, said Gwyneth Straker, MS, PT, assistant professor and chair of the physical therapy department at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.

Students can learn at a slower pace in which learning is the primary concern rather than in the clinical setting, which requires multiple demands, from patient care to time constraints, Straker said.

"It is not as stressful working on the phantom as it is on a real person. [Students] learn body mechanics, from transferring patients to catheterization. These are skills to practice before working on a patient," Saeger said.

In response to criticism of the use of simulated environments, Saeger said, "I agree that I wouldn’t want to graduate a student who has not had experience on the job. There is no substitute for working with real patients."

It doesn’t take the place of clinicals and it isn’t intended to do that, Lucius said. What it is designed to do is put students into that work environment from the start, she said.

GateWay’s facilities include labs and equipment for X-rays, sonograms and nuclear medicine. Nursing labs are set up as four-bed wards to practice bedside procedures. Additional facilities include an intensive care unit for mock codes and complicated procedures, a nurses’ station and two IV labs.

"We have a home care setting designed like an apartment to practice things like getting patients in and out of showers," Schultz said. "It enhances the level of understanding and better helps patients because now students are in real-life scenarios instead of just talking about the steps of bathing."

For the nurse assistant program, the students put the mannequins – which weigh and feel like a real person – on bedpans, practice making an occupied bed, and feed and brush patients’ teeth, Schultz said.

"I feel strongly that the hands-on experience is effective," Lunsford said.

Fran Roberts, Ph.D., RN, vice president of professional services for the Arizona Hospital and Healthcare Association, based in Phoenix, said she anticipates the simulated hospital environments will attract more students such as Lunsford to address the "dramatic and alarming" nursing shortage in the state.

The GateWay center also is good for continuing education for local hospital employees, Lucius said. "All of this together helps address the nursing shortage here," she said.